Cyberbullying in Pakistan: Positioning the Aggressor, Victim, and Bystander

Abstract

This study explores cyberbullying prevalence, causes, reasons, and preventive measures from the perspective of victims and bystanders. The data were gathered from 329 male and female students of different age groups through an open-ended questionnaire and cyberbullying confession pages. Constructivist thematic framework was applied to look for commonly emerging patterns in the data. The study revealed that the likelihood to become a victim to cyberbullying decreased with an increase in age. However, there was no association between gender and cyberbullying. The study showed that various linguistic resources were exploited by the aggressors to victimize the participants. However, being sophomoric users of social media sites and having offline disputes were the core reasons of cyberbullying among a majority of victims. The participants valued the support of parents and friends, and showed faith in the preventive measures taken by educational institutes and Federal Investigation Agency, Pakistan against cyberbullying assaults. Findings from this study contribute to the research on cyberbullying, which is still in its infancy in Pakistan and may help in formulating cyberbullying prevention program.